Dreams from Carlos Viveros-Colorado

When 16-year-old Clarisse Grime was run over by an out-of-control Ford Expedition outside Harding High School in St. Paul this past Thursday, the Star Tribune originally portrayed the accident as an issue of traffic control:

Moore, 52, ran with her daughter and other neighbors across Hazelwood, only to see the teen take her last breaths, Moore said.

Her daughter, Ashley Moore, 23, said the girl’s boyfriend was crying and pleading, “Please move! Talk!”

It’s a corner that has had other accidents, and the neighbors have long wanted a stop sign there, they said.

Padilla said there have been two other accidents there in the past two years, and one of those involved nonfatal injuries. That was a two-vehicle accident in November 2010, he said.

He noted that it’s a sharp corner to turn onto Hazelwood and said the driver misjudged the corner, took out the fire hydrant and lost control of his vehicle. Police conducted toxicology tests Thursday, but it was too early to say whether citations would be issued, Padilla said.

In short order, however, police arrested the driver of the out-of-control vehicle — one Carlos Viveros-Colorado — and charged him with criminal vehicular homicide. The Star Tribune headlined the follow-up story reporting the arrest with the news that the driver lacked a driver’s license.

Reading a little more deeply into the story one discovers, however, that the lack of a driver’s license is the least of it. By his own account, Viveros-Colorado was suffering from a physical ailment that led to the accident. He shouldn’t have been driving, with or without a driver’s license.

Moreover, it turns out that Viveros-Colorado entered the United States illegally more than a decade ago. He is one of those whom the Star Tribune refers to as “undocumented.” (The Star Tribune reports that Viveros-Colorado’s “sister, whom he had called after the crash, told police that Viveros-Colorado was an undocumented immigrant who was in the United States illegally, according to the complaint.”)

In this case, the lack of documentation includes a missing driver’s license, though Viveros-Colorado was convicted of drunk driving in 2001 and was convicted this past April for driving without a license. That run-in with the authorities cost him $100.

Viveros-Colorado also used a false name and stolen Social Security number to work. On the bright side, however, Mr. Viveros-Colorado wouldn’t have needed to use his false name or stolen Social Security number to vote in Minnesota.

By all accounts, Ms. Grime was an outstanding young lady. An immigrant from Ethiopia, she was an honor student fluent in three languages. At the time she was killed, she was attending summer school at Harding, waiting to catch a bus to take her home. Her death is an incredible tragedy. Her family has issued a statement that the Star Tribune has posted here.

[W]hen it comes to illegal immigration, your government has stopped bothering to protect you, bowing instead to political correctness and the alleged value of “diversity.”

We’re not immune from the problem here in Minnesota, but in border states like Arizona and California, it’s even worse. California professor Victor Davis Hanson has written often and eloquently about the problem (click here for one example) of illegal immigration, and this basic summary of his will ring quite true to most rational people: “The simple fact is that once someone chooses to enter the U.S. illegally and remain here illegally, breaking the law, either deliberately or through indifference, becomes easier and habitual: obtaining false IDs, avoiding normal bureaucratic requirements, violating zoning laws, etc. And when the host, whether federal, state, or local government, sends a message that the issue is now entirely political rather than legal, often the illegal immigrant senses that he is (and should be) generally exempt from the mundane laws that others must follow.”

That’s exactly the Vivero[s]-Colorado story. The U.S. government, the State of Minnesota and the City of St. Paul sent him signals every step of the way that said, “We don’t really care if you’re breaking the law because you’re a member of a politically protected minority, so do what you want.” Minneapolis and St. Paul are proud to call themselves “sanctuary cities,” where law enforcement personnel are told NOT TO NOTIFY the federal government or cooperate with the feds when they find illegal aliens living in the city.

We devote more government resources to making sure Grandma doesn’t carry 5 ounces of shampoo on to an airplane than we do to arresting and deporting people like Vivero[s]-Colorado. That’s why Obama’s uncle Onyango felt comfortable living and working illegally in Massachusetts for a couple of decades before his DWI conviction earlier this year. And did that conviction get him deported? No. In fact, just weeks after the conviction, Massachusetts gave him his license back (click here for details) so that it wouldn’t be inconvenient for him to get to work.

It needn’t have happened, of course.

Droogsma adds: “Clarisse’s family doesn’t have the money for her funeral. Contributions to the Clarisse Grime fund can be made at any Wells Fargo bank branch.”

The patrons of illegal immigrants love talking about “dreams.” Clarisse Grime had a dream too, but it has ended in something of a nightmare. Her family’s statement notes:

“We have always dreamed of living in the United States and living out the American dream of working hard and giving our daughter the same opportunities that other American teenage students have. That dream has now been broken. Our daughter’s dream has ended.

“As we say goodbye to our beautiful daughter,” they said, “we are asking that justice be done and that the community continue to keep our family in their prayers and thoughts.”